You Can't Out-Reform Reform. Here's What Labour Must Do Instead.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, according to Oscar Wilde.

But the Irish poet and playwright forgot to add that in politics it can also be suicide.

Which is why Labour must resist the temptation to mimic poll-topping Reform UK – or lurching to the Left to match the by-election victors of the Green Party.

Copying the policies and rhetoric of Nigel Farage would merely give legitimacy to his agenda and could backfire drastically. It is unlikely to lure back former Labour voters who leapt aboard the Reform bandwagon, and risks alienating those who continue to stand by the party.

After the seismic by-election result in Gorton and Denton, Sir Keir Starmer must face up to a new reality: Britain now has a five-party system and he is under threat not only from the radical Right but also the energised Left.

One in eight of the voters Labour has lost since the 2022 election have gone to Reform but two in eight have switched to the Greens and Lib Dems.

This gives the Prime Minister a clear path forward – right through the middle.

Labour has won its biggest majorities by campaigning in line with the mainstream of the general public. If Sir Keir is to have any hope of turning things around, he needs to focus on economic growth to make hard-working families feel better off.

Perhaps the biggest impact of aping Farage would be to convince voters that he was right all along. The more he is copied, the more he will be believed.

Labour's migration policies will only cut through with doubting voters once there is a sizeable and discernible reduction in the number of people arriving on boats and being accommodated in our communities.

Putting it simply, you can't out-Reform Reform on migration. To quote Oscar Wilde once again: "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."

Labour should heed the lessons from other European countries, where the Left has responded to the rise of the populist Right by changing its stance on migration.

In Germany, Social Democrat leader Olaf Scholz shifted to a harder position on immigration in a bid to see off the rise of AfD. He threatened mass deportations and adopted more urgent language on national security following the collapse of the "traffic light" coalition. But it turned off traditional support and led to his party achieving its worst result in history, with 16 per cent of the vote, while AfD scored its best ever with nearly 21 per cent, a rise of more than 10 per cent.

A major battle now raging on the Right of British politics has given Labour a golden opportunity. Robert Jenrick's defection to Reform – the 25th Tory to jump ship – has taken mud-slinging between the two parties to new depths. Instead of attacking the government, they are busy attacking each other.

Labour's best strategy is to stay out of it and watch them tear each other apart. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, as Napoleon declared.

Yet on the day that the Conservatives and Reform were tearing lumps out of each other over the Jenrick defection, rival factions within Labour were involved in a briefing war on their own leadership crisis. This is madness.

There are already signs that Reform's popularity is slipping, with recent polls showing a slight fall in support. Many supporters of the insurgent party are unhappy that Farage is welcoming so many ex-Tories linked to 14 years of failure. With so many crossing the floor, there's an increased risk of them infecting the Reform brand by turning it into a convalescence home for clapped-out Conservatives.

Sir Keir and his team would be wise to let them fight over who has the tougher immigration policy or whether Britain is broken or not. Echoing the language of Reform won't attract many new supporters, but merely turn off existing ones and drive them into the arms of the Green Party and Lib Dems.

Better for Labour to set its own agenda for debate and move the fight on to its own territory.

There are only two issues which can compete with migration as a vote-winner – the NHS and the economy. Labour has three years to deliver improvements in these areas but there isn't a moment to lose and thanks to the far from peace-loving Donald Trump that window of opportunity is going to be even shorter.

Action will speak louder than words, but ease the squeeze on hard-working families and voters may start to think again come election day.

Sir Keir needs to renew Labour. Not turn it into a reformed Reform.

Fact Checking the Fibbers

Suella Braverman

She jumped ship to Reform describing immigration as "out of control" and the country on its knees (must have been a flashback to her time in government).

Latest figures show the net figure for migration around 200,000. When Braverman was responsible for immigration just two years ago it reached a post-Brexit peak of one million.

Begging the question: if 200,000 is out of control, what did Braverman call it when it was one million?

The hypocrisy knows no limits.